But I personally haven't fished any other Pennsylvania trout water that is more productive in terms of quality fish on a day in, day out basis than the Yough.

That's all.

Whoa. I guess when you float it as much as you Ernie, you learn every rock, riffle and trout lie. As a wader, the Yough is a huge question mark on consistency for me.

Streams such as the Lil J and Spring are obviously much more productive for day-in and day out fishing. However, your use of the term "quality fish" might bring it closer to reality for me. No other cold water fish, save steelhead, fight like a big Yough bow in heavy current. Hooking a fish in this river is only half the battle.

Posted on: 2012/9/14 10:42

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"I used to like fishing because I thought it had some larger significance. Now I like fishing because it's the one thing I can think of that probably doesn't." --John Gierach

I haven't fished the Yough in a few years. Never caught a lot of fish but always got into a few. I'll never forget fighting a big fish for quite some time before my 5x tippet broke. Encountered a sparse bwo hatch once in the fall and caught fish on top. Swinging caddis soft hackles has worked for me too on other occasions. One thing no one mentioned is the sheer beauty of the place. The stretch between Ramcat and Ohiopyle has some absolutely stunning scenery especially as fall sets in. If I still lived in SW PA I would fish it regularly.

Posted on: 2012/9/14 11:14

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"You might be a big fish, in a little pond. Doesn't mean you've won, cause a long may come, a bigger one."

I am beginning to get the impression that I need to float this river over wading it. Just gotta put a drift boat on the to do list now..or fish out of my canoe I guess. I would need an inflatable one though, cause my car doesnt have a hitch.

Until then, i am going to keep plugging away. I love being on that river, I just wish it loved me half as much. There are spiders the size of your hand on those bank boulders, poison ivy everywhere, stubborn fish and access is remote/difficult as hell. All part of the reasons I admire the river though. When you fish the yough, you better tighten up your laces, because 80% of that river is not for the faint of heart or less enthused. Ive had many days where I spent hours on the river and didnt see or hear a single human being. Not too many places anymore where you can be in that scenery and feel that at peace. Still, this always creates the question, "why am i not banging fish right now, if this stretch is rarely fished?". I fish a local ww creek, and some spots are so unpressured because of their difficult access/nobody fishes the creek anyways, that its no biggie for me to catch 20 smalles between 12-16" in 2-4 hours of fishing. I could go fish that stream with your child's first self-tied fly and hammer smallies. I just wish the same were true for parts of the yough.

I've never float fished the yough. And I've still caught plenty of fish there - drys only of course.As with many other things - timing is the key. If the cfs is over 1,000, I don't even go there. But under that flow rate - game on!And this has been a great year for wading it. In 4-5 trips there this summer, I've had flows of 600 to 800 cfs. Had no problem reaching risers. I can even easily cross to the other side at my favorite holes at those levels.

As for getting into the long stretches between access points - floating is a great way to do that for sure. But biking along that nice trail is another nice option too. And that's what I do.And it has some advantages over floating that I like. I don't need to go down there with 2 vehicles to shuttle. A big plus for me - I often fish there on weekdays by myself.Floating is a one way ticket - but with my bike, I can zip back and forth between the various holes no problem.And, I can stay put to fish the evening rise at my favorite holes, and still be back to the car in 30 minutes or so. Floaters have to be on their merry way, unless they want a long drift out in the dark. You don't really want to do that on the yough.

My bike is in the back of my truck. I'll hit Ohiopyle this afternoon (it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes for me to get there) and I'm going to let the Youghs' water wash away a tough weeks worth of work. I hope my parachute hopper will do its thing. Dry fly fishin' is the only to go.

Hit the Yough over the weekend. Spent the first hour of daylight trying to figure out what the fish were rising to. Violent rises all along the shoreline on the flats below Confluence. Nothing but tiny olive spinners in the current. Finally gave up on dries/emergers, figuring it had to be bait-fish they were slashing at. Swung streamers on a sink tip and managed a half doz rainbows and a couple decent smallies in about an hour. 2 of the rainbows being 18+ on successive cast. Missed more than I caught.

I have know idea how they would shock the wide open flats of the river in reference to the Trib article. Most of the fish would spook once you get within 15-20 feet, especially if your not in stealth mode. According to the article they found 1 trout between Ramcat and the Casselman in 1994. This year 2 trout. I know it's just a sample, but that is crazy.

I've walked the banks and could count dozens of trout in certain sections. Many being 18"+. At the right time of a hatch you could see 20+ rising trout in certain areas. I started fishing that river 22 years ago by canoe and wading and have landed over half of my largest stream caught trout from the Yough. The fish are larger and more numerous now than 22 years ago.

A part of me wants the river to be recognized for the great river that it has become, but in the back of my mind I like it the way it is. (Except that I believe it should be catch and release from the Casselman to Ohiopyle.)

There are no trout in the Yough. Everyone should really stay away from this fishery

Seriously though, one of my favorite places to fish. It gets a little hectic in the summer below Ohiopyle with the kayakers/rafters, etc. For the most part, they are respectful and share the river, but i've had my share of kayakers oblivious to the fact that i'm fishing 5 yards from them. Can get a little annoying, but it's just one of those things I guess.

Architeuthis wrote:According to the article they found 1 trout between Ramcat and the Casselman in 1994. This year 2 trout. I know it's just a sample, but that is crazy.

The article stated they shocked ONE spot between Ramcat and Casselman. One spot on such a massive river with wary trout that simply swim away from boats, those numbers are understandable. But again that was in 1994.... 18 years ago. Are you kidding me? It has changed drastically since then. (For the better.)

A part of me wants the river to stay the way it is... challenging. If it becomes too fishable, easier to figure out, more popular, it will lose some of its mystery. For me, that's important. That's why I love that damned water.

Posted on: 2012/9/21 13:28

_________________
"I used to like fishing because I thought it had some larger significance. Now I like fishing because it's the one thing I can think of that probably doesn't." --John Gierach

According to the article they found 1 trout between Ramcat and the Casselman in 1994. This year 2 trout.

Then Statistically there are TWICE as many fish (trout) in the Yough in that section as in '94. I'd love to believe that. LOL! But mostly, i think, it is a river that IS getting better, and I'm gonna keep doing my own study to see just how much better its gonna get!

Posted on: 2012/9/21 19:21

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Hatches come and go of their own accord, but work will wait for you to get back.

I've read that report, too. I wonder about the PFBC, though, and how accurate their reports are.

For instance, I ran into a guy from there this summer at a gas station in the morning. He saw the drift boat and came over to say hello and asked where we were fishing. I told him the Yough and he wanted more specificity because he'd been electro-shocking the river. I told him where we were putting in and he said to me that there were very few trout in that section of river. "Not a fishable population" were his exact words.

I thought he must have been joking or mistaken. But he wasn't. I was actually a bit worried. I hadn't been fishing this piece of river because of the low, warm water, but things had changed and I had decided to give it go. So I drove there thinking that maybe the heat or something else had caused a kill this summer. Needless to say, this PFBC guy who was in charge of counting fish on the river was absolutely wrong. Not even in the ballpark.

It was a bluebird day, but in spite of that, after seven hours of fishing, we still put over thirty trout ranging in size from 7-20 inches in the boat So any report that comes out of the FBC on the river is automatically suspect in my opinion. If anyone works for them and would like to comment, feel free. But that that information is going to come out in an official report and that someone got paid to be that incompetent is criminal. Is the whole organization that ineffectual?

As for fertility, if we're using that word to describe hatch density, then no, the river does not compare to some of the better hatch streams and rivers across the state. That being said, there are plenty of bugs, baitfish, crayfish, aquatic annelids, freshwater shrimp, and sowbugs in the river to maintain a nice population of trout and bass that grow to exceptional size.

There are hatches, and they generally come off like clockwork every day at the same time, and you can find trout eating every stage of that particular bug if you know when and where to look.

I don't know many people who've spent more time than myself chasing trout on the Yough. Is it a hard river to learn? Definitely. I learn new things about it constantly. And fishing being what it is, there are going to be tough days. But I personally haven't fished any other Pennsylvania trout water that is more productive in terms of quality fish on a day in, day out basis than the Yough.

That's all.

Ernie couldn't be more spot on with this reply. Are there day's when the Yough might stump even the most educated angler? Of course, but what stream doesn't? This past spring/summer on the Yough gave me some of the best fishing experiences that rivaled any good day I've had on a Central Pa stream....heck any stream I've ever fished and I've fished quite a few ( 4 years at PSU Main missing classes for hatches) What everyone is forgetting here is that 2 years ago the State had an excess of 25,000 fingerlings that were 7-9 inches instead of the dinkie 3-5 inchers they usually put in mass quantity on the Yough. That year not only did they stock their typical 250,000 some 3-5 inchers but sometime that summer they dumped an additional 25,000 that were slightly bigger. Well.....anyone that has fished the Yough this year (and caught fish) would notice an abundance of 14-16 rainbows that were identical to each other. Those were the fish from 2 years ago, they grew to that size in just 2 years. Call me stupid but the survival rate for a trout at 7-9 inches is going to be A LOT higher then the little guys they typically put in. Instead of stocking 250,000 little guys why not put in 100,000 of the 7-9 fish, make it 1 trout over 20 inches a day (similar to the San Juan) and you have yourself a World Class Fishery. The buglife is there....even at the damn you have a consistant BWO hatch most nights...the further down you go toward Ohiopyle the more bugs you get. The dry fly fishing was spectacular most of the season and sounds like it is picking up again. There were more fish this year then any other year in recent memory....this naturally creates more competition for food. The results were staggering.....Mayfly hatches I've scene in the past that went "Uneaten" were all of a sudden getting sucked in one by one on a daily basis by juicy 14-16 inch rainbows....because of the higher fish counts creating the competition for food! Even though I watched countless people taking way too many fish out of the Trophy Trout section this summer it sounds like a good amount of those 14-16 inch trout survived. Hopefully in the next few months a few of the guide services will be able to speak their mind to the Game Commision and open their eyes to the Potential of this Great River and manage it the way it deserves to be managed. As far as the report goes that recently came out........WOW what a laughing stock, maybe they should of concentrated on the riffles where trout like to go when oxygen levels are low :)